Myths Persist About ADA

(July 26, 2004) When President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law in 1990, he said this landmark law would enable everyone with a disability to “pass through once-closed doors into a bright new era of equality, independence, and freedom.”

People with disabilities – and all Americans – have made major strides under the ADA. Sidewalk curbcuts now permit freer access not only for wheelchairs but for strollers and bicycles. Train and subway platforms contain textured surfaces to make them safer for people whose vision is impaired – and those who may just be distracted. Audible street signals remind all of us when to safely cross.

These and other ADA-related changes have begun to welcome all citizens into the public square. Yet 14 years after its passage, hostile attitudes and persistent myths about the law—and those it protects—threaten to undermine further progress. Those of us working to save and even restore the ADA have long ago discovered that these misconceptions are fueled not just by individual ignorance and prejudice but by well-financed political campaigns to eliminate the ADA and other labor, civil and human rights protections.

Even though the former president called the ADA a “basic civil rights” law, his own political party in his home state wants to dismantle the law. The Texas Republican Party recently adopted a platform that “supports (an) amendment of the Americans with Disabilities Act to exclude” many people from its legal safeguards, including people with learning disabilities, HIV, “behavioral disorders” or “mental stress.”

This disturbing political attack on legal protections for children and adults with disabilities is worse when viewed in the context of recent news reports regarding human rights violations in the United States. The Associated Press reported that thousands of children with mental disabilities – some as young as seven years old – are being unnecessarily locked in juvenile detention centers to await mental health treatment. Long waiting lists for community services result in these children actually serving more time (in often abusive centers) than those actually charged with crimes.

Children and adults with mental illness are among the most disenfranchised citizens in our country, yet mental illness always seems to be the first target for those looking to weaken the ADA.

While people with disabilities have been talking in terms of empowerment and shedding the victim mentality, ongoing campaigns by right wing think tanks and some trade associations would have us believe that businesses and corporations are the real victims in this debate. While fighting against labor standards and access regulations, finely crafted talking points encourage ADA opponents to talk about “family-owned” business and “mom and pop” stores victimized by “sleazy” and “greedy” lawyers. Missing are the human faces of those seeking jobs or access to the market place and the use of patriotic words that this nation was founded upon: Freedom, Justice, Liberty and Equal Opportunity.

Indeed, ignoring the impact of multinational corporations, outsourcing of jobs overseas, foreign child labor and all the other reasons why we are witnessing the Wal-Martization of America, California hotelier Bert Meyer recently blamed the ADA for the decline of small business. The “Record Searchlight” (which eliminated any mention of the fact that there is no data supporting the ADA closing any business) reported him as saying, “Its putting small business out of business and putting all retail into big boxes. If you’re not Wal-Mart and you don’t have the deep pockets, how are you going to play this game?”

One might answer: By following the law and taking advantage of the tax credits and other assistance that makes running an accessible business very manageable.

But myths persist, including the false assumption that 14 years of the ADA have removed all of the physical barriers that individuals with disabilities once faced. In fact, many stores, restaurants and workplaces remain inaccessible to those who use wheelchairs or have other physical limitations. Ten years after the ADA was enacted, a survey in Missouri found that barely one out of four state court buildings complied with the law’s standards for accessibility.

Last month, a commission of the American Bar Association reported that employers won nearly 98 percent of the 304 ADA employment-related cases decided by federal courts last year. The Bar commission’s conclusion? Federal courts are interpreting the ADA in ways that “still create obstacles for plaintiffs to overcome.”

Misunderstanding about the purpose and impact of the ADA sometimes stems from ignorance about people with disabilities. Even the most educated and powerful are not above this ignorance.

Earlier this year, for example, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill made front-page headlines when he described President Bush as too disengaged from policy-making. Bush, complained O’Neill, acted in Cabinet meetings “like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people.”

Reporters and political pundits viewed O’Neill’s remarks as a legitimate, even clever, form of criticism. Sadly, syndicated columnist Michael Kinsley was virtually alone in recognizing the bigotry underlying O’Neill’s statement. “I’m sorry,” wrote Kinsley, “but how is being uninterested in policy like being a blind man in a roomful of deaf people? Are blind people uninterested in policy?”

This spring, the U.S. Supreme Court offered additional proof that the ADA is still a work in progress. George Lane, a Tennessee resident and paraplegic who was forced to crawl up two flights of stairs to appear in court, had to take his legal case all the way to the high court to force state officials to bring court buildings into compliance with the ADA. The case was the latest in a string of Supreme Court ADA cases mostly revolving around Federalism issues and resulting in split-decisions that weakened federal protections for people with disabilities.

In Lane, the Supreme Court, again by a close 5-4 margin, upheld Title II of the ADA only as it applied to “cases implicating the accessibility of judicial services.” The narrow scope of this decision means that our opponents will continue to target the ADA for attacks.

In fact, they already are. In Tennessee, the Attorney General quickly moved to deny class-action status for the six plaintiffs in Lane and to deny damage claims under the ADA for discrimination by the State. The battle for access continues.

Attacks from political parties, trade associations, right wing and libertarian think tanks, legal assaults from the states, and more all continue in a well-orchestrated fashion. And these opponents often illustrate their arguments by pointing to the empty accessible seat in a movie theater, the extra spaces in a parking lot, or the unused lift in a motel.

Rather than evidence of unneeded expenditures, these seats and spaces and lifts are waiting for the person who is still locked away in a nursing home or institution because, shamefully, our government will pay for institutional care but not for needed community services. In fact, more than 2 million Americans are locked away in these facilities and as Stephanie Thomas of ADAPT says, “What good is the right to a ramp or an equal opportunity to work if you are stuck away in a nursing home?”

People with disabilities—as well as their families and fellow citizens who believe in dignity and fairness for all—cannot afford to take the ADA for granted.

Although attitudes about people with disabilities are generally improving, myths and ignorance linger. Hostile attitudes, like physical barriers, can block the doors of progress from being opened wide. All too frequently these same attitudes are held by the judges, policymakers, employers and others who impact our lives.

Fourteen years ago, we changed the law. Now, we must continue to change hearts and minds. _____________________________________________________________________________

Jim Ward is president of ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights, based in Washington, D.C.